My friend and I began our 5-night, 6-day at Sunrise Lodge. We did the entire Northern Loop with a spur to Spray Park. 46 miles of epic bliss! 

Day 1: Sunrise to Mystic Lake Camp: We had plenty of company the first night, but dinner at the lake .2 miles from the sites was a treat with Rainier playing peak-a-boo and the wildflowers behind us making a fabulous show. No trail obstacles. An easier first day. Bugs were not bad at camp. Toilet decent. Water source plentiful! 

Day 2: Mystic to Cataract Valley Camp: We could not help but comment on the diversity of the terrain on this hike. A climb out of Mystic provided meadows, wildflower and stunning shots of Tahoma! The suspension bridge over the Carbon was excellent. Love me a suspension bridge adventure! We ended with a very hard climb to Cataract camp and snagged the sweet #6 site, room for two. A bear had been sited at a main water source along the way. Pikas making their chatter and water at camp was plentiful. There are two solared toilets back-to back to each other. So nice to have nice toilets! We did hear a large animal in the middle of the night, but nothing to note other than that.

Day 3: Cataract Valley to Spray Park (Day hike): It's a very steep spur to Spray Park from camp. It's all up, with a rock field for a good 1/4 mile. All without major obstacles, and plenty of water sources along the way. A cinnamon bear (very large) was way too close for comfort, but it was cool to see it at the where you crest Spray Park. Views were spectacular. Stayed at Cataract Valley camp a second night.

Day 4: Cataract Valley Camp to Yellowstone Cliffs Camp: A lot of down and then a lot of up. VERY hard up. Relentless up. But worth every step to a unique camp that looks directly out to the Tyee peak and surrounding cliffs. Stunning! We had some does and bucks romping around our camp that evening. No one else there, just us. Water source plentiful. Our favorite camp site! 

Day 5: Yellowstone Cliffs Camp to Fire Creek Camp: This day provided spectacular landscape diversity. Windy Gap is a treat. Lots of meadows, vista views, and then a steep and steady down to the White West Fork River. To be honest, it was a mess at the first section. Easy enough, but the logs were a little hard to navigate (especially for a 5'2" person like me!) But I'm all about a challenge and managed to navigate, even had to be on all fours at one time. The main crossing has a foot bridge with rail which we were incredibly grateful for. We had to navigate a bit to find the trail again and then embarked on another steep, relentless climb to Fire Creek through sun-speckled forest. The camp feels very remote, as it's .5 miles off the trail. We had it all to ourselves and water source plentiful! 

Day 6: Fire Creek camp to Sunrise Lodge: What a treat to finish off this trip with "money-shot" views of Tahoma and then a descent into Grand Park. We took the spur to Grand to nab shots of the mountain. Wildflowers are no longer. It was very brown and dry. We continued to Berkeley Park where we saw a brown bear off at a safe distance. Marmots, goats, and wildflower fields as we ascended back up! 

It wouldn't be appropriate not to mention how incredibly grateful we are to Rangers, Rovers, trail workers and park service for this wonderful trail. The trail is in such great shape and signage was amazing. We thank you! 

Total was 46 miles, 12,500 feet of elevation gain12/,700 feet of elevation loss. Of course, give or take, given margins or error with devices. A trip I'll never forget! 

Afternoon hike to 6400 high point on Spray Park trail. Flowers still showing. Last water at meadow 3.1 miles and it’s only a trickle. Better water a little lower.  Trail in great shape as usual. 

Arrived at the TH at 8:30am to a ton of cars, almost everyone was going to Tolmie Peak. Spray park was not crowded at all, quite peaceful actually. The day turned misty so we didn’t get big mountain views but did feel like we were in a fairy tale! We saw a large black bear from a safe distance hunting for berries once we arrived at the meadow. I recommend taking the .25 side trail to see spray falls! The hike is pretty steep but worth the effort. We continued on a bit longer than this distance outlined in the hike and came across a very small snow field. It was nearly white out conditions with so much fog and mist so we decided to turn around but would love to go further and maybe do the entire loop one day!

The road to Mowich Lake is long and dusty. They have recently graded it and it is mostly pretty smooth. There is some washboarding on it in places, but there were all sorts of cars that made it. Halfway up the road I ended up getting in a caravan of about 20 cars. One person tried to pass multiple cars on the left hand side while visibility due to dust was very low. NOTE: Do not do that! It is extremely dangerous and a car has gone off the road very recently. That makes it super dangerous for everyone. 

I had to park about 2/3 of a mile away from the Mowich campground arriving at 8:45 am. It was very crowded with lots of cars. I was expecting the trail to be crowded as well, but almost everyone was going to Tolmie. I was by myself and didn't even see someone else for the first 1.5 miles or so. 

The viewpoint at Eagle cliff is amazing. Spray Falls was really tall and huge, but the view of it isn't the best. The switchbacks up after the falls were pretty brutal, but not that long. 

Spray Park itself was amazing, but some clouds had blown in between when I was at Eagle Cliff and when I got to the log footbridge that leads to the first meadow, so the views of the mountain were somewhat limited. I heard someone else say it was a below average wildflower year and I think I tend to agree, but it was still beautiful. Someone also said they had seen a bear earlier but I didn't see it. I wondered around for about a mile after the entrance area before turning around. I found a small pond with a beautiful reflection of the mountain which was full of hundreds of tadpoles. I wish I could have done more, but it will be good to come back. Bugs were virtually nonexistent. Saw several groups who were rucking skis up, which was pretty cool. 

8.21 miles 
1917 elevation gain 
A little more than 4 hours total time

Ridgeline loop to tag 4 peaks around Mowich area of Rainier: Fay, East Fay, Pleasant and Hessong. We dropped down to Spray Park to complete our loop. Comfort with some exposure and scrambling skills required for Fay & East Fay ridgeline, downloading GPX tracks helped us stay on course in a few spots. This loop ended up being 8.5 miles and 3450' gain. 

Parking & road: arrived at the Mowich lake/campground area around 8:30 on a Saturday morning and parking was already down the road past the Tolmie trailhead, this added about an extra half mile each way to our trip. The road to Mowich is dusty and washboarded, with only a few potholes. Any car can make it, and some were certainly slow going to get there. 

Fay & East Fay: Skirting Mowich Lake, you take off uphill toward Fay on a scramble trail after a sign indicates that the trail is unmaintained from there. This uphill part is the majority of the elevation we did for the day, but having some tree coverage and low clouds made for a pleasant uphill experience. Plus, as you gain the ridgeline, you have excellent views down to Mowich Lake. Fay was a class 2-3 scramble with no exposure, the rock was solid, and then we followed a trail just off the ridgeline before gaining East Fay. This was also a low grade scramble but had a few steps of exposure. We were unsure if there was a good way down from East Fay to Knapsack Pass, but it definitely goes! We saw two goats on the climbers trail near the East Fay ridgeline. 

Pleasant & Hessong Rock: after meeting up with the trail at Knapsack Pass, we headed down through the scree and boulder fields toward Mount Pleasant. The boulders were slow-going but stable, and snow-free! Pleasant is a walk-up, unfortunately Rainier was hidden behind the low clouds by the time we made it up, and then we followed the trail down to a saddle before ascending Hessong Rock for our 4th peak of the day. There is more boulder-hopping and eroded trail here, but it was over quickly. Back at the saddle, we assessed our time and figured we'd drop down to Spray Park instead of retracing our path as we had otherwise planned.

Spray Park: the eroded trail from the Hessong-Pleasant saddle was probably the worst of the day, but quickly dropped us through beargrass blooms to the main Spray Park trail. Spray Park was awash with beargrass and lupines, and more hikers than we had seen all day. We followed this quickly through the meadows and forest back to Mowich Lake. It was more miles but also way more efficient than the bouldery approach we had taken before. All in all a rewarding day trip!